All graffiti is low-level dissent, but stencils have an extra history. They’ve been used to start revolutions and to stop wars
BANKSYMy lawyer’s opinion is that the cops might not actually be able to charge me with criminal damage any more – because theoretically my graffiti actually increases the value of property rather than decreasing it. That’s his theory, but then my lawyer also believes wearing novelty cartoon ties is a good look.
More Banksy Quotes
-
-
I know street art can feel increasingly like the marketing wing of an art career, so I wanted to make some art without the price tag attached. There’s no gallery show or book or film. It’s pointless. Which hopefully means something.
BANKSY -
Brandalism Any advertisement in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It belongs to you. It’s yours to take, rearrange and re-use. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
BANKSY -
I need someone to protect me from all the measures they take in order to protect me.
BANKSY -
I’d been painting rats for three years before someone said ‘that’s clever it’s an anagram of art’ and I had to pretend I’d known that all along.
BANKSY -
I’ve learnt from experience that a painting isn’t finished when you put down your brush – that’s when it starts. The public reaction is what supplies meaning and value. Art comes alive in the arguments you have about it.
BANKSY -
Some people represent authority without ever possessing any of their own.
BANKSY -
Nothing in the world is more common than unsuccessful people with talent, leave the house before you find something worth staying in for.
BANKSY -
People who get up early in the morning cause war, death and famine.
BANKSY -
When he time comes to leave, just walk away quietly and don’t make any fuss.
BANKSY -
Sometimes I feel so sick at the state of the world I can’t even finish my second apple pie.
BANKSY -
I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don’t do that so much anymore.
BANKSY -
I tell myself I use art to promote dissent, but maybe I am just using dissent to promote my art. I plead not guilty to selling out. But I plead it from a bigger house than I used to live in.
BANKSY -
The bad artists imitate, the great artists steal.
BANKSY -
Nothing is black and white, and there is no purity and there is no such thing has justice.
BANKSY -
The art world is the biggest joke going. It’s a rest home for the overprivileged, the pretentious, and the weak. And modern art is a disgrace – never have so many people used so much stuff and taken so long to say so little.
BANKSY -
At this time of year it’s easy to forget the true meaning of Christianity – the lies, the corruption, the abuse.
BANKSY -
It doesn’t take much to be a successful artist-all you need to do is dedicate your entire life to it.
BANKSY -
Graffiti is one of the few tools you have if you have almost nothing. And even if you don’t come up with a picture to cure world poverty you can make someone smile while they’re having a piss.
BANKSY -
You can win the rat race but you’re still a rat.
BANKSY -
I like to think I have the guts to stand up anonymously in a western democracy and call for things no-one else believes in – like peace and justice and freedom.
BANKSY -
The holy grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes people to look at it.
BANKSY -
Graffiti is one of the few tools you have if you have almost nothing.
BANKSY -
Although you might have to creep about at night and lie to your mum it’s actually one of the more honest art forms available. There is no elitism or hype, it exhibits on the best walls a town has to offer and nobody is put off by the price of admission.
BANKSY -
I like to think I have the guts to stand up anonymously in a western democracy and call for things no-one else believes in – like peace and justice and freedom.
BANKSY -
Nothing in the world is more common than unsuccessful people with talent, leave the house before you find something worth staying in for.
BANKSY -
The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists.. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.
BANKSY